Authors: Nora Roberts
“Well, honey, you sure do lead an exciting life.”
“Susie.” Caroline leaned back against the banister. “Whoever said small towns were uneventful?”
“Nobody who lived in one. Burke said you weren’t hurt any. I’d have come down to see for myself, but the boys had a sleepover. Even keeping an eye on them, the place looks like we had a war.”
“I’m fine, really.” Except for a hangover, shattered nerves, and an unwelcome dose of sexual frustration. “Just a little frazzled.”
“Who could blame you, honey? Tell you what. We’re having a barbecue tomorrow. You come out here and sit in the shade, eat till you can’t walk, and forget all about your troubles.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“Five o’clock. You drive into town, go all the way to the end of Market, and turn left on Magnolia. We’re the third house on the right. The yellow one with white shutters. You have any trouble finding it, just follow the smell of charring ribs.”
“I’ll be there. Thanks, Susie.”
Caroline hung up and started back to the kitchen. She put the coffee on, popped some bread in the toaster, and took out some of the wild raspberry jam. The sun was sizzling on the wet grass outside, and the wild, hot smell was as appealing as the scent of coffee. She watched a woodpecker settle against the side of a tree to root for breakfast.
From the front porch came Toby’s voice, a rich, creamy baritone. It was lifted in a body-swaying gospel tune about finding peace.
Caroline found that her headache had vanished, her eyes were clear.
All in all, it was good to be home.
Not so far away, someone lay tangled in sweaty sheets and moaned in sleep. Dreams, like dark, twisted rivers, flowed. Dreams of sex, of blood, of power. The dreams were not always remembered in the daylight. Sometimes they flitted in those waking moments, razor-winged
butterflies slicing through the mind and leaving shallow wounds that stung.
Women, there were always women. Those brutal, smirking bitches. The need for them—the smooth skin, the soft scent, the hot flavors—was hateful. It could be overcome for long stretches. For days, weeks, even months, there could be a gentleness, a warmth, even a respect. And then, then one of them would do something. Something that required punishment.
The pain would begin, the hunger would grow. And nothing would quench it but blood. But even through the pain, even through the hunger, there was guile. There was a wild satisfaction in knowing that no matter how they looked, how they struggled, no one would find proof.
Madness was alive in Innocence, but it cloaked itself well. As the summer wore on it would fester inside its unwilling host. And smile.
Dr. Theodore Rubenstein—Teddy to his friends— polished off his second cherry danish. He washed the pastry down with lukewarm Pepsi straight from the bottle. He’d never developed a taste for coffee.
Teddy had just skimmed past his fortieth birthday and had begun to comb Grecian Formula 44 through his thick brown hair. He wasn’t balding—praise be—but he didn’t care for the professorial look the threads of gray gave him.
Teddy considered himself a fun-loving kind of guy. He knew that with his small dark eyes, slightly receding chin, and sallow complexion, he wasn’t heart-stirring handsome. He used humor to attract the ladies.
Personality, he liked to tell himself, caught as much pussy as a perfect profile.
Humming to himself, he scrubbed his hands in the sink in Palmer’s embalming room, the sink just below the trick picture of Jesus. To amuse himself, Teddy swayed from side to side. When he shifted left, Jesus wore a red robe, a kindly expression, and held an elegant hand up to the valentine-shaped heart prominent on his
chest. Shift right, and the face shivered for an instant, then moved to sadness and pain. Understandable, as there was now a crown of thorns perched atop the chestnut hair, thin rivulets of blood marring the intellectual forehead.
Teddy wondered which image Palmer preferred before he reached for his Rock-Hard Cavity Fluid. While he experimented, trying to find that precise point where he could stand and have the two images merge into one, he dried his hands. Behind him, Edda Lou Hatinger lay naked on the porcelain embalming table—the old-fashioned kind, with the run-off grooves along the sides. Her skin was ghastly under the merciless fluorescent lights.
Such things didn’t put old Teddy off his danishes. He’d chosen pathology because he’d been expected to go to medical school. He was the fourth generation of Rubensteins with Doctor in front of his name. But long before he’d completed his first year of internship, he’d discovered in himself a nearly obsessive abhorrence of sick people.
Dead was different.
It had never bothered him to work on a cadaver. Hospital rounds with the wheezing, moaning patients had put him off. But the first time he’d been called upon to watch a dissection, he knew he’d found his vocation.
The dead didn’t complain, they didn’t need to be saved, and they sure as hell weren’t going to sue for malpractice.
Instead, they were like a puzzle. You took them apart, figured out what went wrong, and filed your report.
Teddy was good at puzzles, and he knew he was a hell of a lot better with the dead than with the living. Both of his ex-wives would have been more than happy to point out his lack of sensitivity, his selfishness, and his ghoulish, offputting sense of humor. Though Teddy happened to think he was a pretty funny guy.
Putting a joy buzzer in a cadaver’s hand was a surefire way to liven up a dull autopsy.
Burns wouldn’t think so, but then, Teddy enjoyed
irritating Burns. He smiled to himself as he snapped on surgical gloves. He’d been working on a trick for weeks, waiting for the opportunity to pull it on someone like straight-and-narrow Matt Burns. All he’d needed was a suitably mangled victim.
Teddy blew Edda Lou a kiss in thanks as he turned on his tape recorder.
“What we have here,” he began, using a thick southern accent, “is a female, Caucasian, mid-twenties. Identified as Edda Lou Hatinger. Got her height as five foot five, weight one twenty-six. And boys and girls, she’s built like your old-fashioned brick shithouse.”
That, Teddy thought gleefully, would burn Burns.
“Our guest today suffered from multiple stab wounds. Pardon me, Edda Lou,” he said as he made his count. “Twenty-two punctures. Concentrated on the areas of breasts, torso, and genitalia. A sharp, smooth-bladed instrument was used to sever her jugular, trachea, and larynx in a horizontal stroke. From the angle and depth, I’d say left to right, indicating a right-handed assailant. In layman’s terms, ladies and gentlemen, her throat was slit from ear to ear, probably by a knife with a …” He whistled as he measured. “Six- to seven-inch blade. Anybody out there see
Crocodile Dundee?”
He tried on a heavy Aussie accent. “Now, that’s a knife! On examination of other traumas, this throat wound was probable cause of death. It would do the job, believe me. I’m a doctor.”
He whistled “Theme from
A Summer Place”
as he continued his exam. “A blow to the base of the skull by a heavy, rough-textured instrument.” Delicately, he tweezered out fragments. “Bagging fragments that appear to be wood or tree bark for forensic. I think we’ll agree that victim was clubbed with a tree branch. Blow issued prior to death. If you detectives out there conclude that the blow rendered the victim unconscious, you win a free trip for two to Barbados and a complete set of Samsonite luggage.”
He glanced up as the door opened. Burns nodded at him. Teddy smiled. “Let the record show that Special
Agent Matthew Burns has arrived to watch the master at work. How’s it hanging, Burnsie?”
“Your progress?”
“Oh, Edda Lou and I are getting to know each other. Thought we’d go dancing later.”
Inside Burns’s clenched jaw his teeth ground together. “As always, Rubenstein, your humor is revolting and pathetic.”
“Edda Lou appreciates it, don’t you, dear?” He patted her hand. “Bruises and broken skin at wrists and ankles.” Using his tools, he located and removed tiny white fibers, bagged them while he continued to detail, cheerfully, his findings.
Burns suffered through another fifteen minutes. “Was she sexually assaulted?”
“Pretty hard to tell,” Teddy said through pursed lips. “I’m going to take tissue samples.” Burns averted his eyes as Teddy did so. “I put her in the water for twelve to fifteen hours. A rough guess before I run the tests puts time of death between eleven and three on the night of June sixteenth.”
“I want those results asap.”
Teddy continued taking his scrapings. “God, I love it when you talk in acronyms.”
Bums ignored him. “I want to know everything there is to know about her. What she ate, when she ate it. If she was drugged or had used alcohol. If she had sexual relations. She was supposed to be pregnant. I want to know how many weeks.”
“I’ll take a look.” Teddy turned, ostensibly to exchange instruments. “You might want to check out her left molar. I found it very interesting.”
“Her teeth?”
“That’s right. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Intrigued, Burns leaned over. He opened Edda Lou’s mouth, narrowed his eyes.
“Kiss me, you fool,” she demanded. Burns yelped and stumbled back.
“Jesus. Jesus Christ.”
As laughter doubled him over, Teddy had to sit down or fall down. He’d spent months studying ventriloquism
for just such a moment. The wild-eyed panic on Burn’s face had made it all worthwhile.
“You’ve got some style, Burnsie. Even dead women fall for you.”
Fighting for control, Burns clenched his fists at his sides. If he took a swipe at Rubenstein, he’d have no choice but to put himself on report. “You’re fucking crazy.”
Teddy only pointed at Burns’s white face, pointed at Edda Lou’s gray one, and whooped.
There wasn’t any use threatening, Burns knew. Any official complaint he made would be duly noted, then ignored. Rubenstein was the best. A known lunatic, but the best.
“I want the results of your tests by the end of the day, Rubenstein. You may find it all highly amusing, but I have a psychopath to stop.”
Unable to speak, Teddy just nodded and held his aching ribs.
When Burns swung out the door, Teddy wiped his teary eyes and slid off the stool. “Edda Lou, honey,” he said in a voice still breathless with mirth. “I can’t thank you enough for your cooperation. Believe me, you’re going down in the annals of history for this one. The boys back in D.C. are going to love it.”
Whistling, he picked up his scalpel and went back to work.
D
arleen Fuller Talbot listened to the sounds of the Truesdale barbecue drifting through her bedroom window. She thought it was a damn shame that uppity Susie Truesdale hadn’t even invited her own next-door neighbor to the party.
Darleen would’ve liked a party to take her mind off her troubles.
Of course Susie didn’t socialize with Darleen. She preferred the Longstreets, or the Shayses, or the nose-in-the-air Cunninghams from across the street. And didn’t she know for certain that high-and-mighty John Cunningham had cheated on his prissy wife with Josie Longstreet?”
It seemed to Darleen that Susie had forgotten she’d had to get married and had waited tables at the Chat ’N Chew while her belly was bulging. Maybe her husband had come from rich, but he hadn’t ended up that way. Everybody knew Burke’s daddy had killed himself because all he had left was a pile of debts.
The Truesdales were no better than she was, and neither were the Longstreets. Maybe her daddy made
his way working at a cotton gin instead of owning one, but he wasn’t a drunk. And he wasn’t dead.
Darleen thought it was downright unfriendly that Susie would give a party right out in the backyard where the smell of grilling meat and spicy sauce could make someone feel lonely. Why, even her own brother was down there—not that Bobby Lee ever gave his sister’s feelings any thought.
The hell with him, the tight-assed Truesdales, and everybody else. She didn’t want to go to any damn party anyhow. Even if Junior was working four to midnight down at the gas station. How could she laugh and lick barbecue sauce off her fingers when her very best friend in all the world was going to be set in the ground come Tuesday?
She sighed, and Billy T., who was sucking for all his worth on her rosy breasts, took that to mean she was finally going to start putting some effort into it.
He shifted so he could stick his tongue in her ear. “Come on, baby, you get on top.”
“Okay.” That perked her interest. Junior not only liked it only in bed these days, but he liked it only in one position.
When they were finished, Billy T. lay puffing contentedly on a Marlboro. Darleen stared at the ceiling, listening to the music from the Truesdales’.
“Billy T.,” she said, her mouth moving into a pout. “Don’t you figure it’s rude to give a party and not ask your next-door neighbors?”
“Shit, Darleen, will you stop worrying about them people?”
“It just ain’t right.” Piqued by his lack of sympathy, Darleen rose to fetch her rose-scented talcum powder. If she was going to pick up Scooter from her ma’s in an hour, it was the quickest way to soak up the scent of sweat and sex. “I mean she thinks she’s better’n me. Her snotty Marvella, too. Just ’cause they’re friends with the Longstreets.” She tugged on her T-shirt and shorts, forgoing underwear as a concession to the heat. Her breasts, high and full and round, bulged against the cotton, distorting the faded picture of Elvis. “That
Tucker’s down there right now, cozying up to the Waverly woman. Why, Edda Lou ain’t even buried yet.”
“Tucker’s a shithead. Always was.”
“Well, Edda Lou loved him to distraction. He brought her perfume.” She sent a hopeful look toward Billy T., but he was too busy blowing smoke rings. Darleen turned back to frown out the window. “I just hate them. Hate them all. Why, if Burke Truesdale wasn’t Tucker’s best friend, that boy would be locked up, same as Austin Hatinger.”
“Hell.” Billy T. rubbed his damp belly and wondered if they could get in one more poke. “Tucker’s a shithead, but he ain’t no killer. Everybody knows it was a black that done it. Them blacks the one’s who like to carve up white women.”
“He broke her heart just the same. It just seems he ought to pay somehow.” She looked back at Billy T., one tear slipping out of one eye. “I sure wish someone would get back at him for making her so unhappy before she died.” As the laughter rose up from the next yard, infuriating her, Darleen blinked her wet lashes. “Why, I guess I’d do just about anything for somebody who had the guts to pay him back.”
Billy T. crushed out his cigarette in the little ashtray that had a picture of the Washington Monument on it. “Well now, honey, if you were to come on over here and show me how much you want it, it might be I could do something to even things out.”
“Oh, honey.” Darleen tugged Elvis away from her breasts as she rose to kneel between Billy T.’s legs. “You’re so good to me.”
While Darleen was busy bringing a smile to Billy T.’s face, ribs were sizzling on the grill in the yard next door. Burke presided over them, wearing a big apron that sported a cartoon chef and the caption
KISS THE COOK OR ELSE!
He tipped back a Budweiser with one hand and sauced the ribs with the other. Susie hauled bowls and platters from the kitchen to the picnic table, shooting off
orders to her children to grab the potato salad, fetch more ice, to stop sneaking the deviled eggs.
Caroline had to admire the orchestration. One would swing into the kitchen, another would swing out. Although two of the boys—Tommy and Parker, she remembered—would occasionally pause for a few elbow pokes and jostling, the choreography went smoothly. The younger boy, Sam—named after Uncle Sam, as he’d be nine on the Fourth of July—was engrossed in showing his baseball card selection to Tucker.
Tucker was sprawled on the grass, and despite the heat, held Sam in his lap as they perused the album. “I’ll trade you my eighty-six Rickey Henderson for that Cal Ripkin.”
“Nuh-uh.” Sam’s mop of sandy hair flopped in his eyes as he shook his head. “This’s Cal’s rookie year.”
“But you’ve gone and bent the corner, son, and my Henderson’s in prime condition. Might even throw in my brand-new Wade Boggs.”
“Shoot, that’s nothin’.” Sam turned his head, and Caroline caught the gleam in his dark eyes. “I want the sixty-three Pete Rose.”
“That’s robbery, boy. I’m going to have your daddy throw you in jail for even suggesting it. Burke, this boy’s a born criminal. Better send him off to reform school now and save yourself the heartache.”
“He knows a scam when he hears one,” Burke said mildly.
“He’s still pissed that I got his Mickey Mantle back in sixty-eight,” Tucker murmured to Sam. “The man doesn’t understand creative trading. Now, about that Cal Ripkin.”
“I’ll take twenty-five dollars for it.”
“Shit. That does it.” He caught Sam in a headlock and hissed in his ear. “You see that guy sitting there working on boring Miss Waverly to death?”
“The one in the suit?”
“Yes, sir, the one in the suit. He’s an FBI agent, and asking twenty-five dollars for Cal Ripkin’s rookie year is a federal offense.”
“Nuh-uh,” Sam said, grinning.
“It sure as God is. And your daddy’d be the first to tell you ignorance of the law is no excuse. I’m going to have to turn you in.”
Sam studied Matthew Burns, then shrugged. “He looks like a pansy.”
Tucker hooted with laughter. “Where do you learn these things?” He decided to try another tack and see if he could torture the card from Sam. He flipped the boy over, hung him upside down, then began to tickle him.
As Caroline watched them wrestle, she lost track of Burns’s conversation. Something about the Symphony Ball at the Kennedy Center. She let him drone on, managing an occasional smile or murmur of agreement. She was much more interested in watching the other guests.
A scattering of people were huddled under the shade of an oak. It was the only tree in the yard and a perfect place for a gathering of lawn chairs and lazy conversation. The skinny, swarthy-looking pathologist was making some of the ladies giggle. Caroline wondered how a man could perform an autopsy one day and tell jokes the next.
Josie was posed in a tire swing, flirting with him— and with every other man within reach. Dwayne Long-street and Doc Shays were sitting on the back porch, rocking and sipping beers. Marvella Truesdale and Bobby Lee Fuller were sending each other long, intimate looks, and the beauty-shop owner, Crystal something, was gossiping with Birdie Shays.
She could see little patches of yard running on either side of the Truesdales’. The clothes strung on lines to bake dry in the yellow sun. There were kitchen gardens in nearly every one, with tomatoes heavy on vines, snap beans, collards, waiting for the pot.
She could smell the beer, the spicy meat, the hot flowers baking in the late afternoon sun. Tommy punched a new cassette in his portable radio and blues drifted out, heavy on the bass, bittersweet, and slow and easy as heartbreak. Caroline didn’t recognize Bonnie Raitt, but she recognized excellence.
She wanted to hear it. She wanted to hear Sam squeal
and giggle as Tucker wrestled him. She wanted to hear Crystal and Birdie gossip about someone who’d died twenty years earlier in a car wreck.
She wanted to dance to that music, to watch the way Burke kissed his wife through the fragrant smoke of the grill—kissed her as if they were still teenagers sneaking love in shadows. And she wanted to feel what Marvella was feeling when Bobby Lee took her hand and pulled her through the kitchen door.
She wanted to be a part of it, not someone sitting on the sidelines discussing Rachmaninoff.
“Excuse me, Matthew.” She offered him a quick smile as she swung her legs over the wooden bench. “I want to see if Susie needs any help.”
While Sam bounced on his back, Tucker admired the way Caroline’s neat white shorts showed off her legs. He sighed when she bent down to pick up a Frisbee. Then he yanked Sam over his back, gave him a quick pink belly, and rose.
“I think I’ll get myself a beer.”
Caroline paused by the grill. “Smells great,” she said to Burke.
“Five more minuets,” he promised, and Susie laughed.
“That’s what he always says. What can I get you, Caroline?”
“Nothing, I’m fine. I thought you could use some help.”
“Honey, that’s what I’ve got four kids for. I just want you to sit down and relax.”
“Really, I …” She sent a cautious look over her shoulder. Burns was still sitting at the table, his tie ruthlessly knotted as he sipped the chardonnay Caroline had brought as a contribution.
“Oh.” Susie had followed her glance. “I guess there are times a woman needs to keep herself occupied. Why don’t you run in and fetch the bread-and-butter pickles? There’s a fresh jar in the cabinet, left of the refrigerator.”
Grateful, Caroline headed off to comply. On the porch Doc Shays tipped his hat. Dwayne gave her the sweet, absent smile of a man already half drunk.
Caroline stepped inside and pulled up short. Bobby Lee and Marvella were locked in a heated embrace in front of the refrigerator. When the screen door slammed, they jumped apart. Marvella flushed and hitched her blouse back into place. Bobby Lee offered a smile that was caught somewhere between prideful and sheepish.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Caroline began, uncertain who was the most flustered. “I just came in to get something for Susie.” There was enough heat in the kitchen to fry bacon. “I can come back.” She nearly backed into the door when Tucker pulled it open.
“Caro, you can’t leave these two in here alone.” He winked at Bobby Lee. “Kitchens are dangerous places. Y’all get outside where your mamas can keep an eye on you.”
“I’m eighteen,” Marvella said with a gleam in her eye. “We’re both grown-up.”
Tucker grinned and pinched her chin. “That’s my point, sweetie pie.”
“Besides,” Marvella went on, “we’re getting married.”
“Marvella!” The tips of Bobby Lee’s ears turned bright red. “I haven’t even talked to your daddy yet.”
She tossed her head. “We know what we want, don’t we?”
“Well, yeah.” He swallowed under Tucker’s quiet stare. “Sure. But it’s only right I talk to him before we say anything.”
She hooked an arm through his. “Then you’d better start talking.” She pulled him through the back door.
Tucker stared after them. “Jesus.” Shaken, he dragged a hand through his hair. “She used to drool on my shoulder, now she’s talking about getting married.”
“From the look in her eyes, I’d say it was more than talk.”
“How the hell’d she get to be eighteen?” Tucker wondered. “I was just eighteen myself a minute ago.”
With a light laugh Caroline patted his arm. “Don’t worry, Tucker, I have a feeling she’ll be giving you another baby to drool on your shoulder in a year or two.”
“Holy God.” Even the thought had him sputtering.
“That’d make me something like a grandfather, wouldn’t it? I’m thirty goddamn three. I’m too young to be a grandfather.”
“I’d think it would be more of an honorary title.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He looked at the beer in his hand. “I’m not going to think about it.”
“I’m sure that’s wise.” She turned to open the cupboard. “What are bread-and-butter pickles?”
“Hmm?” He turned back to her, and his thoughts about life and aging flitted away. Lord, she did have fine legs, and the sweetest little butt. “Top shelf,” he said. “Stretch on up there.” He watched the way her shorts rode high on her thighs when she rose to her toes and reached. “That’s the way.”
Caroline’s fingers brushed the jar before she realized what was going on. Dropping back on her heels, she glanced over her shoulder. “You’re a sick man, Tucker.”
“I do feel a fever coming on.” Still grinning, he strolled over. “Here, let me help you with that.” His body pressed lightly against hers as he reached for the jar. “You smell good, Caro. Like something a man would be happy to wake up to in the morning.”
The instant jolt of reaction forced her to take a slow breath. “Like coffee and bacon?”
He chuckled and pleased himself by nuzzling her neck. “Like soft, lazy sex.”
Too much was happening inside her. Too much, too fast. Tingles and pressures and muscles going lax. She hadn’t felt anything like it since … Luis.
Her muscles tensed again. “You’re crowding me, Tucker.”
“I’m trying.” He plucked the jar out, set it on the counter. Putting his hands on her hips, he turned her toward him. “You ever come across something, like a piece of music, that kept playing through your mind— even when you didn’t think you were that fond of it?”